20 Recruitment - Human Resources Interview Questions and Answers

What is Recruitment ?

- Recruitment is the process of identifying, screening and hiring the most suitable candidate for a job vacancy.
- The candidate might be hired internally or from external sources
- The process must be performed in timely and cost effective manner
- It can also be termed as a process linking the employers and the employees

Explain the purpose and importance of recruitment.

The purpose of recruitment is to:

- Attract the maximum number of candidates to the organization and encourage them to apply
- Create strong database and select the best candidate for the position
- Ascertain the current and future manpower requirements of the organization
- Make the hiring exercise a cost effective one

Importance of recruitment is:

- To identify the potential candidates within the organization for future man power requirements
- To identify the outside candidates and hire them to meet the man power requirements
- To establish various sources of candidates
- To help in increasing the success of hiring process

Explain recruitment process.

The recruitment process tries to get the best manpower for the organization. It can be considered as the first strategic step towards the success of an organization.

The process consists of following major steps:

- Identifying the vacancy
- Preparing the job specifications and description of the potential candidate
- Advertising the requirement
- Receiving and managing the applications
- Short listing the candidates
- Arranging the interviews
- Conducting the interviews and deciding on the candidate

What are the various internal and external sources of recruitment?

There can be two kinds of sources of recruitment for organizations - Internal and External.

Internal recruitment - It means getting the candidate from within the organization to fulfil a vacancy. Internal recruitment can be done by:

- Transfer - transferring an employee from one location/ department to other.
- Promotion - Taking the employee higher up in the hierarchy
- Ex-employees - These could be the retired or retrenched employees
- Demotion - Lowering the position of an employee in the hierarchy for various reasons

External recruitment - It means getting the absolutely new candidate to the company. The sources of these employees could be many:

- Job notifications in the print/ online media
- College campuses
- Placement agents
- Unsolicited applicants
- Employee referral program
- Employment exchange
- Labour contractors

Explain the internal and external factors affecting recruitment.

There can be various internal and external factors which affect the recruitment process.

Internal factors - The factors which are under the control of organization are called internal factors.

These could be -

i.) Recruitment policy of the organization
ii.) Human Resource Planning
iii.) Expansion plans
iv.) Cost of recruitment

External factors - These are the factors which are not under the control of the organization.

These could be -

i.) Availability of talent
ii.) Brand image of the organization
iii.) Politico-social environment
iv.) Legal conditions
v.) Economic condition of the market
vi.) Recruitment policy of the competitors

What should be the focus of recruitment policy of a company?

A good recruitment policy helps the organization in developing an effective recruitment process. It can be termed as the first step in developing an efficient recruitment process. A recruitment policy defines the recruitment objectives and clearly defines the framework to work within.

A good recruitment policy should focus on:

- Being unbiased towards all candidates
- Recruiting the best talent
- Helping the employees identify their potential
- Promoting transparent, merit based selection
- Developing cost effective recruitment process
- Appointing an authority for final decision
- Being socially, politically, legally and economically friendly

List some factors that affect the recruitment policy of a company.

Various factors which can affect the recruitment policy of a company are:

- Its objectives
- Policies of the competitors
- Government laws - Social and economic
- Political environment
- Cost of recruitment
- Time available
- Preferred recruitment sources

What are the main components of a recruitment policy?

The main components of a recruitment policy are:

- Terms of recruitment
- Sources of recruitment
- Using the services of placement agents
- Payment terms and conditions for placement agents
- Recruitment of contractual employees
- Obtaining requirements from departments
- Selection process
- Employment terms and conditions

What are the advantages of outsourcing the recruitment services?

Many organizations outsource their recruitment services to the placement agencies. The main advantages of doing so are as follows:

- It allows the organizations to focus on core and strategic activities
- It leads to optimal use of resources and time
- It provides access to the expertise of the placement agents
- Reduction in recruitment cost

Explain Poaching/ Raiding.

Poaching in recruitment means hiring the employee of a competitor who is working in the same capacity as desired by you. This is a major challenge faced by the HR managers as it causes the leakage of talent from an organization and effects its productivity.

The employee is usually hired by offering him better salary and perks.

List the e-recruitment techniques. What are the advantages of e-recruitment?

E-recruitment means using internet for the recruitment services.

Three main techniques used in e-recruitment are:

- Advertising on job portals
- Building a recruitment section on company's website.
- Screening the database of candidates on job portals

The advantages of e-recruitment are:

- Lower cost of advertising the job openings
- Helps in saving time
- Large pool of candidates to choose from
- Day in - day out access to the database
- Screening the database brings in only relevant candidates
- Paper less process - more organised

Differentiate between recruitment and selection.

- Recruitment aims at searching for the talent and promoting the candidates to apply for the position while selection is the process of screening the candidates to fill a position with the most suitable candidate.

- Recruitment process get a pool of candidates for the selection process to work and choose the best one.

- Recruitment encourages more and more people to apply while selection eliminates unsuitable candidates to zero down on the best one.

- There is no contractual agreement between the employee and the employer in the recruitment process while after the selection a contract is agreed upon by the employee and the employer.

What is recruitment management system? What are its features and benefits?

- Recruitment management system is a tool for effective management of recruitment process. It helps in quick, reliable, accurate and unbiased processing of various applications.

- The system helps in efficient management of system by automatically maintaining the database of candidates.

- It works as a good interface between various parties involved in the whole process

- It helps in better communication.

How would you maximize your ROI on recruitment?

Recruitment is a time and money consuming activity. In order to maximize the ROI through recruitment activities, a company should keep following things in mind:

- Clearly define the achievements you expect from the recruitment process. Establishing the clear goals doesn't leave a place for confusion in the system.
- Develop effective ways to measure critical results.
- Precise estimation of time and cost of recruitment.
- Ensure that the people working in the recruitment process are well trained.
- Estimate the tangible and intangible benefits that have come from the recruitment exercise.

Explain the process of recruitment through placement agents.

The process of recruitment through placement agents consists of following steps:

- Brief the consultant about the profile and the candidate
- Placement consultant shortlist some candidates and sends the CVs
- Company's representative shortlists the CVs sent by consultants
- Interview is scheduled by the agent
- Interview conducted by the company's representative
- If the candidate is selected, he is given an offer after the negotiation else the consultant sends another candidate

What qualities would you look for in consultants before getting them on board for your recruitment activities?

If a company decides to outsource its recruitment activities, it looks for a consultant to do this job. Following are the important qualities, a company should look for in the consultant before hiring them -

- Experience and expertise in the sector
- Resources they possess
- Achievements in the last projects
- Flexibility and adaptability
- Result orientation

What are the elements of an effective recruitment strategy?

The purpose of a recruitment strategy is to hire the best talent a company desires in a timely and cost effective manner. Following are the main elements of an effective recruitment strategy:

- Identifying the jobs
- Type of candidates required depending on their - performance, experience, domain knowledge.
- Sources to tab - job portals, campuses, competitor's employees, employee referral
- Assigned recruiters
- Process to evaluate and hire candidates

What challenges have you faced as a recruiter?

Major challenges a recruiter faces are:

- Lack of candidates in some particular domain
- Changing trends of the market
- Lack of self motivation
- Lack of agility in the process
- Lack of job prioritization
- Lack of proper job analysis

If you are required to recruit expats, what qualities will you try to judge during the interview?

When there is a shortage of skills and talents at a particular geographical location, the company tries to hire people from other geographical locations. These people are called expats. Sometimes the companies require only expats for certain positions - depending on their recruitment strategy. While hiring expats it is important to judge following qualities in them:

- Professional qualifications and expertise
- Adaptability and Flexibility
- Cultural sensitivity
- Family conditions
- Open mindedness
- Any past international work experience
- Level of self-motivation

What do you understand by "Equal Employment Opportunity"?

Equal employment opportunity means an equal and fair treatment for all people. There is no discrimination among the employees or candidates on the basis of:
race, age, sex, marital status, disability, sexuality, pregnancy etc.

Equal employment Opportunities help in overall development of both the society as well as the organization. They help the organizations in creating a good image for themselves and discharging their social responsibilities.